


Dust in the Wind

by Etheostoma



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Because that's all that came of this movie, Cathartic release of angst so that future fluff writing may commense, Death, F/M, Grief, Infinity War spoilers, Mourning, So much angst, Stream of consciousness throughout the course of their final scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 14:16:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14474451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etheostoma/pseuds/Etheostoma
Summary: Never in a million cruel realities would Wanda have imagined how it would actually end for them: Vision, kneeling before her, eyes tortured but resolute and burning with promises of love and forgiveness and a thousand other unspoken emotions and thoughts, Thanos thundering up behind them as he systematically eliminated each and every attempt of their teammates to delay his approach.Their time was up. Vision’s time was up.





	Dust in the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> Like everyone, I saw Infinity War Friday night and left the theater a shell of my former self.
> 
> It's taken a day to process, and I had to have some kind of cathartic release of all of the angst and agony from that movie before I can delve into happier writings. So, here! Also, apologies if the dialogue is slightly off--I have only seen it once to date and I was kind of crying my way through the last thirty minutes to I'll have to see it again before I can correct any inconsistencies. In the meantime, I claim creative license and give you this!
> 
> *throws out extremely angsty Scarlet Vision one shot*
> 
> With this out of my system I can start working on fix-it fics and blurbs about those TWO YEARS that Marvel neglected to show us. I am shipper trash, so it is coming. 
> 
> In the meantime, read, enjoy, and mourn. Comments and kudos are always welcome, and I'd love to talk movie with anyone who needs an outlet.

They didn’t expect it to end so quickly.

In the span of mere days their world had cracked, splintered, and then shattered into millions of infinitesimal pieces, cast to the wind with no hope of recovery or repair. Wanda and Vision were not naïve—they had always known the odds were against them for any kind of happy ending. They knew it was likely that somehow, sometime, some battle would likely claim one or both of their lives. A hero’s life was not glorious in their world, but by shirking the world they had made it work. They had known it might end at any point along the way—but they had hoped, _oh they had hoped,_ that perhaps it never would

  
The last two years had been punctuated with clandestine meetings set around the globe, a stolen day here, a week there, claimed and taken whenever their duties and schedules allowed. Vision had his commitments to Tony, and the Accords, and Wanda her place with Captain Rogers and the remainder of the team, both bound by an overwhelming obligation to oaths sworn and paths already taken. But, as time went on, those responsibilities came to mean less and less, eclipsed by promises whispered in the night as passion gave way to a sleepy, satisfied sense of belonging, overpowered by the utter sense of _rightness_ they each felt when in the presence of the other.

She had always known, logically, that eventually Vision might die. Never would she have imagined that it would have to be by _her_ hands.

All her life she had known nothing but pain, anguish, suffering. Sokovia as it was in her youth was a fleeting memory, eclipsed by bombs and death and pain and a furiously burning flame for vengeance. Then Pietro had left her, gone on without her and suddenly she had the Avengers—a new family, a family that accepted her for herself, but nevertheless yet another family plagued by blood and death and destruction.

Her hands, her power, was a deadlier force than even the physical might of Captain Rogers, or the insurmountable rage of the Hulk. She could move buildings, twist minds and shatter realities. Her hands had only ever brought destruction, even when she was fighting for good and salvation and everything _right_ in the world.

Vision, though…he had made it _different_. She felt… _whole_ when she was with him, free in a way she could be with no one else. He knew her mind, and she his. He knew the burdens she bore with her powers, share the nightmares that tormented her week in and week out following the incident in Lagos. She knew _his_ inner struggles and demons as well, knew the humanity that burned ferociously within his synthetic outer shell. Her teammates looked at him and saw a marvel, a manmade man with a power beyond that of the earth embedded in his head, the knowledge of humanity hardwired into his brain. 

Wanda looked at him and saw Vision, the man— _the man—_ who held her heart, who accepted her and loved her and made her proud, for the first time, to be who and what she was.

The man whose _mind_ might have signed the Accords, but whose _heart_ had certainly not.

She knew it, he knew it, and for the last two years that had flirted with the invisible line drawn between the two factions of the Avengers, carving out their own path amid what neutral ground they could find, stealing a few fleeting moments of happiness here and there where they could. The words themselves had gone unspoken, until this point, always implied but never uttered. 

Now, here at the end of things, in this hot, humid country surrounded by slavering alien hordes and with a very real death bearing down upon them, this was now their _only_ chance. The air stirred, tendrils of a faint breeze tickling Wanda’s nose and bringing her jolting back to the present like a slap to the face. The acrid tang of smoke and blood hung heavy in the air, accompanied by a sense of something _else,_ a gentle pressure against her mind bringing with it an undercurrent of the same roiling mess of emotions that thrummed in her veins. It was _strong_ , curling around her mind, wrapping around her heart and doubts and anguish and regret in the softest, most comforting of embraces.

Her mind leaned into the touch even as her body flinched and her hand raised, eyes wide and full of anguish. “Don’t make me do this,” she breathed, hands already surrounded by a scarlet glow she now bitterly wished she didn’t have. It was like being torn in two, a great cruel force seizing her heart and simply wrenching it apart.

His gaze, when it lifted to hers, bore the same regret, the same longing for all of the moments they had yet to share and that would now never be theirs. She could sense his thoughts, feel his trembling emotions in the embrace of their minds as though she held him in her arms against her skin. He was wracked with a need to go to her, to hold her and offer her some comfort and consolation for what was yet to come. Phantom hands soothed her mind as something _else_ shone in his eyes, a wave of complete, overwhelming _peace_ that rocked her to her core.

“I feel only you,” he said quietly, and she wept, tears flowing freely from her tormented eyes, carving water tracks down her pale cheeks even as she concentrated the brunt of her power on the Stone, on the one thing keeping her lover alive. She could feel it cracking, feel their reality begin to shatter, feel their tenuous happiness trickling away to dust around them.

Thanos drew ever closer and she gritted her teeth, shifting to direct another wave of energy behind him, a scarlet barrier shielding them from the monster bearing down upon them. She would not give him the satisfaction of victory, would at least make Vision’s sacrifice, Vision’s _death_ , mean something. She could feel the Titan drawing closer, pushing through even her most powerful attempts to forestall him, and she bared her teeth in a tortured grimace, willing the stone to break _, break now break before he gets here break oh god_ Vision _don’t please don’t break._

Then there was a shift as something clicked into place, some meeting of molecules and energy that was _it_ , they were there, on the cusp of absolute obliteration. “I love you,” Vision whispered, eyes brimming with so much love and trust and resolution and forgiveness that Wanda felt she might explode alongside the stone. They had never said the words, had always left them unuttered but sitting heavily in the air, an unspoken promise to be revisited upon the next time.

“I love you,” he said, and felt her agreement, her love returned, her heart breaking as she broke _him._ She could feel it _through_ him, feel the pulse of his emotions and the thrum of his adrenaline and the wave of his absolute acceptance—

\--and then that fine thread connecting them _shattered_ , and Thanos was upon them and the Stone splintered and cracked and exploded into an array of miniscule crystals and Vision, her Vision the only one who had made her feel whole and loved and human and oh god _Vision_ was gone.

They had done it. They— _he_ —had sacrificed _everything_ so that Thanos might not succeed.

Wanda crumpled to the ground, spent, shoulders shaking and body wracked with uncontrollable sobs. They had done it, _she_ had done it.

Then Thanos was there, his words ripping through her, penetrating more viscously than any bullet or knives or bombs ever could, tearing her to shreds from the inside out as this _monster_ said he understood, as he curled his fingers and the gauntlet flared green and then Vision was back, _back, alive, nonononononono, how??_ his eyes wide and panicked and full of fear like she had never seen—fear that flared and then suddenly was extinguished with the life in his eyes as Thanos reached out and ripped the Stone from his head, sending Vision’s lifeless body crumpling to the ground as he set his hard-won prize in the center of the gauntlet.

Wanda screamed her pain, her anguish and torment beyond conscious thought, an overwhelming sense of hopelessness flooding her veins and sapping her of all strength and will. She had done it, _they_ had _done_ it, the Stone had been destroyed and safe from Thanos’s grasp, Vision’s sacrifice accepted, her hideous deed done.

All for nothing, all for naught.

Vision, now dead twice over, once by her hand, neither time worth _anything_ , the universe at the mercy of the monster before her. Then Thanos was clenching his fist, and suddenly the world didn’t matter anymore, the fight was over and the will to pursue it lost.

Wanda could feel something happening, could sense a _shift_ in the reality of the cosmos and the alignment of the universes, and knew that this was it. Her body began to dissolve, turning to dust on the wind, and as she sifted away to nothingness Wanda felt relief, relief to not have to live with this grief that was consuming her from the inside out, relief to not have to live on alone without Vision by her side, relief to not have to live with _herself_ after what she had done. 

She was terrified, she was alone, she was again without any that she had every truly loved and at the mercy of her inner demons as they ripped and clawed and tore—but she would have to face them no longer, her mind and body shimmering and shifting as Thanos's reality settled into place.

Her eyes fluttered, fixed upon Vision’s lifeless shell, her mouth moving in the phantom of words uttered—and then she was gone, a whisper of ash through the air.


End file.
